you're the worst mom EVER, I love you

Some days I wake up and it feels like Monday, even when it isn't. But some days I wake up and think, "Today is a new day!" This feeling usually dissipates around the 73rd time I tell the children to brush their ever loving teeth, but that glimmer of hope, or possibly it's just insanity (doing the same thing, expecting different results) - it feels nice.

Same thing with evenings. Sometimes, after a rough day, I drive home dreading the drudgery of dinner and bath and bedtime before it even begins. It's like a really maddening and mundane version of Groundhog Day. But sometimes I walk in the door and I feel refreshed and energized. I think, "It's only 3 hours. I got this. How bad can it be?" (LOLOL.)

The point is, 82% of the time, even when I start with the best intentions, an hour in I'm pretty much ready to impale myself on any vaguely sharp object within a ten foot radius.

[15 minutes later]
*Darth Vader Voice*
GET IN THE GODFORSAKEN CAR OR I WILL PERSONALLY ESCORT YOU TO THE DARK SIDE!
Credit: @lurkathomemom

It's nice having a helpful partner, and I thank my non-denominational god-substitute basically every day that I am so lucky in that respect. Usually, for whatever reason, when one of us is at the end of their rope, the other has enough reserves in their tank to step in and take over in order to prevent imminent injury to life, limb, and sanity. Hats off to anyone who does this solo and doesn't lose their goddamn mind. I salute you.

This parenting gig is really freakin' hard, no matter which way you slice it. There's not enough grace, patience, hands, or hours in the day to do this job the way we imagined doing it in our minds, before we actually had kids. I don't know about you guys, but some days, it sucks the life right outta me. By the end of the night I feel like a tattered, drool-soaked chew toy that my dogs divested of its stuffing.

Then I think about where that life-blood is being siphoned off to - it's raising humans! And I feel a little bit better. Then I get back down to the actual nitty-gritty-shitty of raising said humans and I feel worse again. A friend posted a link the other day - Parenting Advice: Don't Kill Them. The author writes, "I JUST WANT TO LOVE YOU WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO DESTROY ME?!" The struggle is real.

A good friend of mine who doesn't have kids sometimes says, "I just don't understand why SO MANY PEOPLE do it?! Like, almost everyone! It seems kind of awful! Why do you people keep doing this to yourselves, on purpose?!" As I say, it's the biggest mistake you will never regret. :)

DM and I frequently stress about all the ways we're falling short as parents. He and I had different upbringings, experiences, and expectations. But we're generally in agreement on what an "ideal" lifestyle would look like for our family, and we're not quite there yet.

DM's dad worked long hours as a doctor while his mom stayed home and took care of the kids. He had a plethora of cousins and aunties. He was picked up after school every day, and though she certainly had her hands full, his mom was around to make sure the kids were fed and homework was done. But as first generation immigrants and "new money" in an old money world, there were certain cultural and community cues that went under the radar, e.g. playing on the "right" sports teams, going to the best sleepaway camps, wearing the "cool" clothes, etc. It's funny, the things that leave scars so many years later.

My mom and dad were divorced, my mom remarried(ish), and all three of my parents worked full time. Us kids were in daycare from 6am to 6pm daily, and attended terrible summer camps until I was 12 and they decided I was old enough to stay home with my little brother and sister. (And by "stay home" I mean I actually held summer school for my siblings. I made them journal and do homework and everything. LOL. Sorry guys.) This one camp (that billed itself as an equestrian camp but didn't have any horses?) basically used the older kids (including me) as free labor to take care of the younger kids. W.T.F. My parents were never around to be room parents or chaperone field trips or help us with our homework or build leprechaun traps or come to cross-country meets or soccer games. However they did manage to feed us home-cooked meals every night, and didn't have a TV to use as a babysitter, which kind of boggles my mind. Gold medals all around!

The life DM and I are giving our children, for better or for worse, is more like my childhood than his. Poor Colby and Jack are usually the last ones to get picked up every day. I'm currently wrangling the unruly beast that is the YMCA Summer Camp Matrix (it's a thing) because what in the hell else are you supposed to do for those ten weeks between June and August?

Seriously, what is going on here? Nobody told me I'd need advanced degrees in engineering and mathematics to plan my kids' summer schedules.

The rational side of me knows that I had a similar upbringing and I turned out pretty alright. Yeah, I hated summer camps and after school care. I wished my parents could have attended my games and class parties and field trips. But I never felt like "someone else was raising me," and I never, ever doubted their love. When my brain's in charge, I think to myself, my kids are pretty damn lucky and they are going to be just fine.

But when my heart's calling the shots, I feel like a dick. I spend five or six waking hours a day with my kids, max. And 73% of it is telling them to hurry the hell up. Yes, as I've said before, I would love to be super chill Zen mom, turning each argument into a teaching moment, stopping to smell the roses along the way. And I do what I can when I can. But there are only so many hours in the day. We can barely get the kids to school and ourselves to work on time in the mornings, and on the flip side, every single evening is a grind: rushing to pick them up on time, dinner (like an eating contest, except the slowest one "wins"), bath, show, stories, and the "royal coronation jubilee" that is bedtime. We have been spared much homework thus far and THANK GOD because I honestly have no clue how in the world we're going to fit that into the mix.

I'm so wrung out from this groundhog day grind that it takes some serious (mental and physical) acrobatics to be the best mom I can be, to gird my loins for the endless stream of BS from the fruit of my loins. I know that when I have the energy and the wherewithal to use "positive reinforcement" and "redirection" and "love languages," when I wake up an hour earlier so I have time to prevent breakfast and tooth-brushing battles from becoming flat-out wars, when I pack lunches and backpacks the night before instead of frantically running around the morning of, everyone ends up happier. But the chasm between knowing this, and doing this, is deep and wide. Sometimes, I'm able to make the leap. Sometimes, I'm not.

More than anything, I am blown away by the fact that most people go through these exact same machinations, or worse, day in, day out, and the entire population isn't just walking around sobbing or stabbing people with scissors or sleeping under their desks every single day.

And don't get me wrong. I want to work. I sort of cherish arriving on Monday mornings. Settling into my comfy chair in my quiet office to drink an entire cup of hot coffee uninterupted is a little like heaven. And DM and I both are pretty freakin' lucky on the work schedule front, for lawyers, anyway. Still, I'd like to work less. Or, get paid more, so I could afford to give someone else money to raise my kids (and cook and clean) for me ;)

I'm well aware these are #firstworld problems. See, e.g., The Scale of Suck. A blogger friend of mine put it really well in a great recent post: "In the Colosseum of troubles, I know that I face lions that some people pray for..." Understood. But still. Lions are scary.

I don't really have a point, I don't think. Just a little insight into the conflicted ramblings in my jumbly brain: "You're a pretty good mom, give yourself a break! You're blowing it, pull your shit together! Work harder, get promoted, make more money, so you can go more places and do more things! Work less, (find someone to pay your bills?) do less things, BE THERE more! You survived, they're going to be just fine! I hope you're saving for therapy, they're going to need it! They're such good kids, we must be doing something right! OMG, we broke them, where did we go wrong?!?"

The other day we were running late (okay we're running late every day, but this day we were running extra late). Jack said "What will happen if you're late for work?" I replied, "Well, if I'm late too many times I would probably lose my job." Colby said "I wish you WOULD lose your job. That way we could all stay home together all the time." Knife. in. the. heart. I said, "Well if I didn't have a job then we couldn't afford to have a home to stay home in!" She said, "Would we have no house? Or just a littow house?" I responded, "A little house, probably. Or maybe an apartment." Colby: "Could we still have a pool?" Me: "Definitely no pool." Colby: "Okay then maybe you can keep your job." ;) Thanks for the cosign, kid.

Anyway, as I imagine my mom would say, "You're overthinking this just a little." What I try to remind myself, at the end of the day, is that I'm doing the best that I can, I'm giving everything I have to give, and that has to be enough. That IS enough.

The other morning, Colby was possessed by the devil. She refused to dress herself or let herself be dressed or allow anyone to speak or breathe. She started screaming like a bloody banshee and pinwheeling her arms and legs and then melted into an angry puddle of preschooler on the floor. Again, maybe if we'd had the time and the energy to calmly reason with this vicious imp, we could have solved things more amicably. And/or called in an exorcist. But in real life, DM and I both had meetings, attendance mandatory, and we needed to GTFO of there. So we basically had to tag-team the child and dress her spastic noodly limbs against her will. This was maybe the maddest she's ever been. But not sixty seconds later she latches on to me like a koala, looks up at me with her big round brown eyes, and says, "Mama, I need a snuggle."

Same thing happens with Jack all the time. He is SO sensitive and emotional, depending on which way the wind blows, the littlest things can turn into World War III. I actually got "I HATE YOU!" for the first time the other day. It was jarring and heartbreaking and a tiny bit funny, too. But in the midst of that fury, I ask "Do you think you need a hug?" And his answer is, always, "Yeah, maybe." <3

Anyway, whatever else we're building here, the foundation is love. (Well, love, glitter glue, and goldfish crumbs.) And one thing I can be proud of is that my children know it and feel it too. (The love and the crumbs.)

OMG you guys. I am literally incapable of writing a short blog post. This was just supposed to be a "quick" one. Whoops. The other night I was complaining to DM that the book I was reading was "aggressively wordy" and he said "Sounds like it's right up your alley." ;)

Kombucha Wagon

I belong to a few touchy-feely, no-judgment-zone mommy groups online. Mostly they're comprised of kind, thoughtful, well-meaning people, but I gotta say, there are always the outliers. Everybody has their pet issue, like, "I believe you should just be your best self, I don't judge, unless you [fill in the blank], in which case you are a terrible mother and I feel sorry for your children." And look, I'm not about to claim I'm Benevolent Queen Even Keel, doling out support, smiles and sunshine without assumptions or conclusions. I've come a long way, but I still catch myself formulating unfounded opinions about people I know nothing about (and people I know very well). I'm working on it.

To be clear, I'm talking about "judgment" per the modern mommy vernacular. Negative judgment. The snap decision that someone is "less-than" as a parent or a person because of the decisions they make, or their circumstances, or the way they look, act, speak, etc. Judgment in itself - the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions - is an indispensable tool. You're going to have a rough time without it.

As I've mentioned here before, I think even the nasty kind of judgyness is somewhat ingrained. We stick with "our kind," we understand them, we trust them, we feel safe with them, they "get" us, we can be ourselves. Conversely, we distance ourselves from "others." It think this is human nature, at least in part. Then again, so is cannibalism. And that's kind of what judgment is. Cannibalism of people's souls.

Just because we're hard-wired for a particular behavior doesn't mean it's right or good.

Honestly, I'm not even judging your judgyness. I totally get it. I always think I'm right. I have, hundreds of times, thought to myself, "Ugh, I just wish I could live that person's life for them because they are DOING IT WRONG! I would obviously do a way better job." But this approach is problematic for many reasons, including, but not limited to:

1) Even if someone is making a mistake, they need to figure that out for themselves. No one is really going to change unless it's their decision to do so. Maybe I just surround myself with stubborn mules, but I have never had someone say, "Wow, you know what Mackenzie? You are so right. I have seen the error of my ways. Thank you for showing me the light. Thank you, Oh Wise One, for guiding me to the path of righteousness." No. If we're being real, telling somebody they're doing it wrong is just a sure fire way to get them to dig in their heels and do it even wrong-er-er.

2) Obviously, if you're using yourself as the rubric for a straight-A report card in Life, everyone who is "not-you" is going to fail. (By the way, I am so not using myself as a rubric. Maybe "Me" circa 2007, or even 2013. Certainly not me now. I would say I am presently a solid C student at Life.) Anyway, you get my gist. People are going to fall short if you're expecting them to do exactly what you would do in any given situation. But guess what? You're not Jesus! Nobody cares "What You Would Do."

Probably the numero uno judgy issue among allegedly "supportive" parenting groups is breastfeeding. I kid you not, even the men get up in arms about it, which I find to be completely asinine. OF COURSE you "strongly believe" women should breastfeed their children! You're not the fucker whose nipples are getting gnawed off!!! How convenient for you!

This one mom literally said "I never judge other mothers for anything, except if they don't nurse their children, because that's basically child abuse." ERRRRRR. WRONG ANSWER. I mean are you kidding me with this shit? That actually dovetails nicely with a recent article on Scary Mommy titled, "If you don't breastfeed your baby, I'm judging you." Well you know what? Fuck you and the placenta-fueled kombucha wagon you rode in on. (Okay, see? I'm being judgy. But really just for comic effect. It's not my cup of tea, but more power to ya with your placenta-burger and your fermented bacterial beverage. I bet you feel really... fortified...? :))

I'm not even going to give credence to the "I'm judging you" post by linking to it here, but I'll give you the Clif notes: She says if you don't have a legit medical or psychological excuse not to breastfeed, and you still choose not to, you suck. One of my "non-judgy" mommy "friends" commented, "Well, she has a point. You should at least try." No. You're wrong. And here's why. I MADE this child. THIS BABY, AND THESE BOOBS, INCIDENTALLY, BELONG TO ME. So back the %&$# off.

We as a society place a great deal of worth on the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit. This is a monumental responsibility, of course, and it still kind of boggles my mind that we have to take a test to drive a car, or interview to work at McDonalds (which actually seems hard, by the way, especially if you're the person that has to talk and listen at the same time?!) but they just let us walk out of the hospital with these tiny humans and say, "Good luck with that!" However, we trust that (most) parents have their kids' best interests in mind, and they will do right by their kids whenever and however they can. Sure, we're going to screw 'em up a little along the way. But that's what makes us us such interesting, beautiful creatures. That's what makes us human.

I understand that "breast is [probably] best," from a purely nutritional standpoint. And of course we all want to do what's best for our children. But if breastfeeding makes you want to slit your wrists or throw your baby out the window... if it is, quite literally, making you crazy, the equation gets a little more complicated. Add the wracking weight of guilt that has been institutionalized by the freakin' American Medical Association, the abysmal state of paid parental leave in the United States, the fact that you're a social pariah if you DON'T breastfeed, but you're an amateur porn star if you do it in public, and a crunchy granola whackadoodle if you do it too long, etc etc etc, and we're talking some complex calculus and shit. It's just not as simple as "they" make it out to be.

In the wise words of JJ Keith, "You can't win at parenting or homemaking. If you think you're winning then everyone else thinks you're a dick." Anyone who denies making compromises and concessions is a dirty, rotten, liar-face. Maybe, like me, you failed at breastfeeding, and fed your kid Monsanto formula. After that, perhaps because of the internalized formula-guilt, you lovingly spoon-fed your littles nothing but homemade, organic baby food. Then, possibly, the pendulum swung back too far in the other direction, and your children's diet now consists primarily of pizza, dino nuggets, and things that are orange.

Maybe you exclusively breastfed your first child for four years, but your second survives solely on condiments and food he finds on the floor of the minivan. Maybe your child has never watched TV in her life, but you use - GASP - sunscreen with PARABENS in it. Maybe you home school your kids and they're fluent in three languages but they binge on Netflix every night (in Japanese). Maybe your munchkins are violin virtuosos but they wear inorganic poly-blend clothes made by tiny children in Bangladeshi sweatshops. Somethin's gotta give, you know? (Okay, seriously though, Bangladeshi sweatshops are effed up.)

Here's another funny example. The other day a friend posted a picture of giant vats of Ranch dressing and nacho cheese at Smart & Final. I sheepishly admitted that I was pretty sure that was the same size Ranch that we regularly cycle through at our house. "Plus," I said, "look at those verdant valleys on the label! It's obviously super healthy! Who doesn't want industrial-sized nutrition in a bottle with a handy, spill-proof cap?" Someone commented "You should really look at the ingredients, that stuff is crap!" My reply: "Ignorance is delicious ;)" She responded "Ignorance will land you 6 feet under!"

Listen. The world is full of potential threats to life and limb. There are things that might kill you quickly (planes, trains, automobiles, texting and driving, fucking sharks (I mean darn sharks, not sex with sharks, but both are probably lethal). Other things will kill you slowly (cigarettes, sleeping pills, not-sleeping, BPA, parabens, sulfates, nitrites, gluten). And let's be honest, we're probably all going to rot away from thumb cancer in thirty years anyway. I admit, Ranch is probably pickling our organs. But. Of all the terrible ways to die, Death by Ranch Dressing is not the worst. ;)

I feel like this is such an apt representation of online interactions in general. Not to be rude, but, why do you care that a stranger on the interwebs is eating Ranch? I mean, thanks for the concern, I guess, but, there have got to be more productive outlets for your time and energy.

Colby and Jack's fights are actually a tiny microcosm of the internet. Jack inherited his mom's pesky trait of perpetual right-ness, and we keep having to remind him that it doesn't [fucking] matter, dude. We're like, Buddy, how is it a personal affront to you if your sister believes that Leonardo is the purple Ninja Turtle?

(Side note: remember this nanny I interviewed that said Ranch dressing was toxic and suggested I make it from scratch? Lady. I haven't washed my hair in days. I am single-handedly supporting the market for dry shampoo. I don't think I've peed since Tuesday. My kid is eating something green! So what if it's floating in Ranch Soup? Cut me some slack!)

Anyway. Bottom line: You gotta do what works for you and your family. Nobody is winning all of the time. It's a juggling act and sometimes you drop some balls.

Why can't we just trust that we are all doing the best we can with what we have, and leave it at that?

Parenting Math

* Symptoms may vary.

[Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post. It was getting too long, even for me!]

sorry not sorry

i read this article on slate a week or two ago. it was titled "'my life is a waking nightmare' - why do parents make parenting sound so godawful?" in case you can't tell from the title, the author ruth graham is complaining about the "uterus-shriveling posts" of "mommy bloggers" that she feels compelled to read while luxuriating in long, quiet bubble baths. and i get where she's coming from. i really do. before i had kids, the only thing i found more annoying than people gushing about the wonder of pregnancy, child birth and motherhood was people bitching about how hard it is to be a parent. i was like, hey, there's a pill for that! it's called birth control! (editor's note: said pill doesn't work unless you take it as instructed.)

graham also makes a decent point toward the end about the way that the faux "worst mom ever/parenting sucks/my kids are a-holes" genre, written primarily by "good" middle class moms, skews the public perception and draws attention away from real parenting problems. which kind of reminds me of an ex-boyfriend who would tell me, whenever i complained about anything, that i should be thankful i didn't have cancer and or lose my arms in a freak accident. and again. i get it. i've said it myself. we should "choose joy" when we can. but a gal can only step on so many legos before she snaps, you know? and the internet is kind of like your local indulgent late-night bartender, serving you another cold one, pretending to give a shit about your problems, and calling you an uber.

anyway, nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you read this crap. (the same can be said of me reading her post, i guess, or facebook arguments about how global warming is fake and obama is a knyan terrorist... and i know sometimes it's like watching a train wreck, you can't NOT read the stuff. but if it bothers you THAT much, maybe try? i know i do, for the sake of my own mental and physical health.) we'll leave for another day and/or professional therapy the issue of why any of us feel the need to write about our joys or sorrows at length in such a public forum.

this post was shared over 6000 times on facebook and has almost 1000 comments. it induced shock waves of "mom guilt" throughout the mommy blogger scene. (see, e.g., "you know it happens at your house too," whose author felt so bad after reading graham's article, she wrote a post of her own titled "parenting is," detailing the joys and challenges of parenting and attempting justify/explain the "inappropriate parenting humor and foul language" of the (anti)mommy-blog set.) and i get that too. one of my "child-free" friends once said that sometimes he wants kids but then he reads my emails and changes his mind. i felt sooooooo awful. my husband is always telling me to keep my yap shut around people who have yet to experience the "joys" of parenthood: "yeah, it's hard as f*ck, and they'll find that out soon enough. just let them live out these last halcyon days in ignorant bliss." i emailed all my friends who didn't have kids at the time, apologizing and trying to explain the simultaneous heaven-and-hell that is parenthood. (i discuss it at length in another post - the biggest mistake you will never regret.) one of my friends wrote back and said, "you are on crack. get off your high horse if you think your crazy ass ramblings have any actual bearing on our decision whether or not to have children." my other friend wrote, "have you always been this insane? or did the kids do this to you? i will add your points to my list of the pros and cons of procreation." ha. okay. point taken.

however, at the end of the day, you can take bubble baths and naps and buy pretty things with your expendable income and sit on the toilet without someone providing a running commentary of your bodily emissions and the "furriness" of your vagina, so i am unable to muster a whole hell of a lot of sympathy at this exact moment in time.

anyway. sometimes parenting can be difficult:

or disastrous:

or just plain shitty:

but it's not all bad. just look at the potential:

photo source: awkwardfamilyphotos.com